Folk and Traditional Song Lyrics:
Bonny Boy

Bonny Boy

Bonny Boy

 The trees are growing high my love, and the grass is growing green;
 And many a cold and winter night that I alone have been.
 It is a cruel and bitter night that I must lie alone,
 Oh! the Bonny Boy is young, but he is growing.

 Oh! father, dear father I think you did me wrong
 For to go and get me married to one that is so young.
 He is but sixteen years and I am twenty-one.
 Oh! the bonny boy is young and he's growing.

 Oh! daughter, dear daughter, I did not do you wrong
 For to go and get you married to one that is so young,
 He will be a match for you when I am dead and gone.
 Oh! the bonny boy is young, but he is growing.

 Oh! father, dear father, I'll tell you what I'll do;
 I'll send my love to college for another year or two;
 And all around his college cap, I'll bind a ribbon blue,
 For to let the ladies know that he's married.

 A year it went by and I passed the college wall
 And saw the young collegians a-playing at the ball;
 I spied him in among them, the fairest of them all,
 Oh! my bonny boy was young and still growing.

 At the age of sixteen years he was a married man,
 And at the age of seventeen the father of a son,
 But at the age of eighteen, o'er his grave the grass grew green;
 Cruel death put an end to his growing.

 I'll buy my love a shroud of the Holland linen brown;
 And whilst they are making it, the tears they will run down;
 It's once I had a true love, but now he's lying low,
 And I'll nurse his bonny boy while he's growing.

DT #307
Laws O35
AX
oct99